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VPOD: Takeaways from Jean-Louis Rodrigue Workshop Part I and a Vintage 1970s Copper Necklace

While all my friends were celebrating St. Patrick’s Day this year, I was attending a movement workshop with the renowned Jean-Louis Rodrigue. You’ve heard me mention Jean-Louis before. He’s a genius “movement coach to the stars” but in this particular class he was working with a group of public speakers like myself.

We did plenty of exercises to reconnect with our bodies (anybody else out there always in your head?). Then we had an opportunity to apply what we learned up on stage.

While coaching speakers on that stage, Jean-Louis used two catchphrases that have stayed with me and that I’ve been coming back to again and again since I left the workshop. I wanted to share both of them with you because I believe they can be helpful even if you NEVER get up on a stage.

(Today, in Part I, I’ll share the first expression and on Wednesday, in Part II, I’ll share the second.)

First, IMAX IT.

When a speaker was on stage making small gestures to illustrate her point, Jean-Louis suggested that she think of an IMAX screen. It stretches from floor to ceiling and from one end of the theater to the other. It takes up the ENTIRE space on the theater wall. And he wanted her to the same thing on stage. He wanted her to fill up the entire stage with her body.

“IMAX it!” he said.

How I love this expression!

Because how many of us play small in our daily lives?

We think small, we feel small, we act small, we do small things.

Some part of us feels big, grand, and extraordinary but that part somehow gets lost between here and there while we’re spending time on mundane tasks, caught in traffic, or doing another load of laundry.

But what if, just like a speaker or performer on stage, you IMAX-ed yourself in one area of your daily life?

What if you dug as deep and reached as high and stretched as far as you could in just this one area?

For instance, what if you IMAX-ed your diet? Or what if you IMAX-ed your relationship with your surly teenager? Or what if you IMAX-ed that nagging pull you’ve had recently to learn graphic design?

Imagine what might happen.

Jean-Louis helped me realize that, as a speaker on stage, I have to constantly remind myself to IMAX it and make bigger, grander gestures. But certainly the world needs all of us, me included, to IMAX it off the stage, too, by making bigger, grander gestures to our fellow man.

Not only do we need to IMAX our own lives, but we should constantly be looking for ways to IMAX the lives of others as well.

Then when all that’s taken care of, you may even want to IMAX your fashion. This spring you can do that by selecting a bigger, grander statement necklace like today’s VPOD, a vintage 1970s copper beauty.

It’s a real IMAX fashion find for a Vintage Crusader!

Available at Nomade Exquis.

(To receive the VPOD via email along with detailed size, price and purchase information, sign up for my growing email mailing list here. Your information will never be sold or shared and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.)

Written on March 26, 2012 by Mary Kincaid in 1970s, Advice, jewelry, vintage, Vintage Jewelry

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Vintage Crusader SPOTLIGHT: Shea Curry, Shameless Jewelry and Project Accessory

Think you’re busy? Me too!

That’s why I’m amazed when I hear stories of gals who are able to pen novels while waiting in line at the grocery store or who can get more done in a single year than a lot of us can achieve in an entire decade.

And Shea Curry is definitely one of these busy bodies who gets things done!

When this talented actress was sitting idle in her movie trailer on the set of Princess Diaries 2, she figured it was a perfect time to start designing her own jewelry line. During the three months of production, she ended up making jewelry for all the females on the cast and crew. Then it wasn’t long before she discovered her jewelry being featured in INStyle Wedding Magazine.

But Shea didn’t stop there. This year she added another challenge to her resume: Reality TV Contestant. Shea battles it out with eleven other contestants on the latest design reality program, Project Accessory.

GO PINK Bracelet to Benefit BCCA

Since Shea likes to use recycled pieces in her jewelry line and has designed a popular GO PINK ID bracelet that contributes 20% of sales to benefit Breast Cancer Charities of America, Zuburbia is pleased to feature her in this month’s Vintage Crusader Spotlight.

Certainly busy enough to need 28 hours in her day, this gracious gal somehow found a few spare minutes to chat with me about creativity, flea market shopping, her experience on Project Accessory and how she can be both naughty and nice.

Actress. Jewelry Designer. You’re a super creative and talented gal. How have you fostered this creativity in your life and do you have any tips for the rest of us?

As a little girl I was in dance class and singing lessons, but some of my fondest memories were quietly making jewelry and trying to make clothes for my dolls when I was supposed to be napping. I think we all still have that creative little girl inside us and it’s easy to find ways to channel her. Sometimes it means you need to look at your wardrobe with a different perspective and pull pieces together that you haven’t put together before. It can even be as simple as re-paining a room, re-arranging furniture, or buying a cool antique from a flea market to give a room a whole new look.

Tell us about the process of becoming a contestant on Project Accessory. Did you ever dream you’d be on a reality show?

A friend had told me about the show and that they were auditioning in major cities. I decided to give it a shot and I remember being more nervous than at an acting audition! I made it past the first round and they asked me to put together a video of my daily life and me in jewelry-making action. That audition can be seen on YouTube and still makes me laugh!

shea curry project accessory audition video

Click pic to watch video on YouTube

What was the biggest challenge you faced on Project Accessory?

Well, I’m a jewelry caster which means that I cast my pieces in molds with very hot metal. Then I clean or de-burr each piece and solder, etc. We didn’t have access to any of that so I felt like I couldn’t really do what I really do. I like making pretty things so some of the materials we had to use were not necessarily materials I would choose to create an accessory. And, of course, making shoes was a challenge, but very exciting to say that I now know how to do it!

And what was the biggest lesson you learned from participating in Project Accessory?

I learned that I should always trust myself no matter what anyone says.

That’s a great lesson that all of us should remember and it can be really hard to do! Now I understand that you often shop at flea markets to find recycled materials to use in your jewelry line. What are your thoughts on vintage as it relates to current fashion and do you have any flea market shopping tips for us?

Shea Curry Shameless Jewely Collection

I absolutely LOVE shopping at flea markets! I think you can find so much inspiration from old pieces. I think fashion is constantly recycling itself, and mixing vintage pieces with modern design is so beautiful! When shopping through those sometimes endless bins of jewelry at flea markets, take your time and really try to visualize how you can take a vintage piece and create a whole look around it.

Okay, so I’d love to hear your top three favorite actresses AND your top three favorite jewelry designers. Either vintage or modern.

For actresses…Meryl Streep (She becomes the characters she plays.) Catherine Deneuve (Her depth is breathtaking.) Michelle Williams (She makes you feel exactly what she is feeling.) And for jewelry designers…Vintage Chanel (Always a classic. Always in style.) Alexis Bittar (His designs are classic modern.) Devon Leigh (Uniquely Modern.)

You appeared in the film Valentine’s Day and you have a role in the upcoming film New Year’s Eve. What’s your favorite way to spend both of these holidays?

To be honest, I’m not the biggest fan of Valentine’s Day, just like my character in the film. By that I mean I don’t like all the hype around this ONE night as the night to have a romantic dinner with your significant other. I like to skip the expensive dinner and go right to the bedroom for dessert! For New Year’s Eve, I prefer spending it with friends and loved ones playing board games and drinking fine wine.

Shea Curry at Valentine's Day Premiere

Your company name is Shameless Jewelry and one of your collections is named Naughty/Nice because you believe we need to embrace both our good and bad sides and both the sassy and sweet sides of ourselves. I recently did a blog post on this topic also. But what we really want to know is…How do you do this in your own life? How do you embrace both the naughy and nice parts of Shea?

I love this question!!! I’ve always considered myself a dichotomy of personalities. Always struggling with the sweet, polite, feminine, Southern-girl side of me and that tequila-drinking, hanging-out-with-the-boys, occasional potty mouth, wild vixen side of me. But I decided to just embrace all of me. I mean, don’t we all love the chocolate dipped pretzel because of its opposing sweet and salty flavors? And I think knowing and accepting that we have many flavors is a beautiful thing.

Finally, what’s in store for Shea in 2010?

Well, I just finished designing my 3rd Collection called TWISTED LOVE and will be showing that at the ENK Accessorie Circuit Show in NYC in January. I am adding clutches and constantly adding new pieces to existing collections. I’m very excited for the possibilities in 2012…it’s endless!! Keep checking out my latest designs on ShamelessJewelry.com.

Thanks so much, Shea! Now you can get back to work!

Written on December 15, 2011 by Mary Kincaid in interview, Interviews, jewelry, vintage, Vintage Jewelry

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VPOD HI/LO: Vintage Wreath Pins and Presence vs. Presents

The hustle and bustle of the Holiday season was interrupted here in LA yesterday morning with the tragic shooting rampage just blocks from my apartment. Perhaps you saw the video on the news. S-C-A-R-Y.

And since a stop at the FedEx office smack dab in the middle of the crime zone was on my list of errands yesterday, had I not taken a wee bit longer than normal to finish my eBay Roundup, I would have actually been on Vine Street when it happened.

Which is why I feel compelled to remind everyone that no matter how many people on your holiday list, no matter how much time you spend searching for the most-perfect gifts, no matter how well you can channel Martha Stewart while wrapping them, at the end of the day, the loved ones in your life will always prefer your PRESENCE to your PRESENTS.

The gift of your PRESENCE will beat out any PRESENT any day of the year.

And there aren’t enough presents in the world that can make up for the lack of presence of someone you love, right?

So why is it that so many of us hold back this perfect present every day?

Why is it that we wouldn’t think of sorting through a stack of our mail at lunch with a friend, yet somehow think it’s okay to go through our email while they read the menu and decide what to order?

Why is it that many of us see family members just once or twice or year and yet find it hard to keep our cell phones in our pockets and resist texting or tweeting for the few hours we’re with them?

It appears that many of us have forgotten what it feels like to be turned ON to life when all of our electronics are turned OFF.

So here’s a radical idea.

What if you celebrated this holiday with no gifts at all EXCEPT your presence.

Instead of spending harried weekends running around town looking for gifts or engaging with web pages, you’d actually have the quality time needed to truly engage with the people you love.

Instead of spending an hour together unwrapping presents and creating a big pile of trash, you could spend a few hours volunteering together as a family and creating a memory that would nourish you for years to come while also helping out your fellow man.

Can you imagine the world we’d live in if we all prioritized PRESENCE over PRESENTS?

But while this thought is lovely, I know it’s probably not realistic. Most of us will still be out hunting for gifts these next few weeks. Hopefully, today’s HI/LO challenge serves as a reminder that beautiful gifts need not cost a fortune.

One of these glitzy vintage wreath pins costs $145, the other over $11,000!

Can you guess the Hi and the Lo?

It’s a Hi/Lo holiday challenge for all you Vintage Crusaders!

Available at Antiques by Bubbleking and Portero.

(HI: Wreath on Right from Portero | LO: Wreath on Left from Antiques by Bubbleking | To receive the VPOD free via email with detailed size and price information, sign up for the growing email mailing list here. Your information will never be sold or shared and you can easily unsubscribe at any time. | Disclosure: Zuburbia is an affiliate of the eBay Partner Network.)

Written on December 10, 2011 by Mary Kincaid in Brooch, Hi/Lo, jewelry, Pins, vintage, Vintage Jewelry

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VPOD: Vintage Filigree Art Glass Duster Earrings and Being Cool

We’ve often heard about retailers and brands offering celebrities money to wear their clothes and use their products. In fact, we’ve also heard the scuttlebutt when these same brand ambassadors are caught out in public sipping a rival brand’s beverage or wearing a rival brand’s pair of jeans.

But now, this celebrity branding has taken an interesting new twist.

It seems that the teen chain Abercrombie & Fitch has offered Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, reality star of Jersey Shore, a substantial payment to STOP wearing the brand’s clothes.

It seems “The Situation” is not “brand-appropriate,” according to David Cupps, senior counsel for Abercrombie & Fitch.

But here’s the thing (and I wish I could get this point across to all the school kids filled with angst because their parents can’t afford to buy them the hottest pair of sneakers or jeans this fall):

Wearing a label doesn’t make you cool!

Didn’t Abercrombie just prove that by offering to pay off The Situation?

If the act of wearing an Abercrombie label made you cool, the company wouldn’t have a problem with him sporting their clothes, right?

Instead they’re really saying here’s a guy who isn’t cool, who doesn’t embody what we think of as cool and we don’t want him in our club. Let’s pay him to go away.

Enough already!

What makes you cool or uncool isn’t someone else declaring you cool or uncool or wearing a brand that the culture has declared cool or uncool.

Cool is what happens when you own your own power.

When you aren’t afraid to proclaim YOU to the world.

When you don’t hide behind your beauty or your intelligence or your quirkiness or your creativity but when you embrace it and amplify it so it can’t help but glow brightly for those around you to see.

Cool ISN’T embracing someone else’s idea of cool and it’s definitely not embracing some brand’s idea of cool or some celebrity’s idea of cool.

That’s just imitation.

And while imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, it’s also an easy way to cheat the hard work of discovering who YOU are and the uniqueness that only you can bring to the table.

I think of people who rely solely on brands to help define their style and identity as Label Snobs.

They think because they’re wearing a label that it somehow makes them better or cooler than the folks who aren’t.

And you know what? The other insecure people of the world will agree with them.

But the rest of us know better.

We’re not opposed to labels. We love a beautifully crafted designer piece as much as the next gal. But, here’s the difference:

We don’t buy something simply because of its label.

We make our purchases based on more important personal criteria that include:

* Do I love it?
* Is it well crafted?
* Does it fit my style statement?
* Is it in my budget?
* Can I see myself wearing it multiple times in multiple ways?
* Does the manufacture and the production of the item align with my values?

And today’s VPOD fits the bill.

Maybe these fine vintage filigree art glass duster earrings aren’t marked Haskell or YSL but they’re still fabulous finds for a cool Vintage Crusader!

Available at More! More! More! Jewels and Treasures. | Discovered at TheFind.com.

(To receive the VPOD free via email with detailed size and price information, sign up for the growing email mailing list here. Your information will never be sold or shared and you can easily unsubscribe at any time.)

Written on August 18, 2011 by Mary Kincaid in Earrings, fashion, jewelry, vintage, vintage clothes, vintage clothing

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VPOD: Vintage Lucite Pendant Necklace and Recycling Plastic

I’ve only just begun reading Susan Freinkel’s timely book, Plastic—A Toxic Love Story, and I’m already enthralled.

For instance, did you know we’ve produced as much plastic in the past decade as we did in the ENTIRE twentieth century?

But what’s most disturbing is that unlike metal, glass and paper, which can truly be recycled without adding new materials, plastic can’t.

Melting plastic for recycling damages plastic’s polymer bonds. This means new virgin plastic is always added to the mix when recycled plastic is turned into a new product.

Currently, for example, only 30% recycled plastic can be used to make new plastic bags.

So…when you recycle 3 old plastic bags you end up with 10 new plastic bags.

Recycle those 10 plastic bags and you end up with 30 new plastic bags.

And so on. And so on.

So, as Lisa Kaas Boyle points out in her HuffPo article on this issue, recycling plastic goods produces MORE plastic in the world not less!

This isn’t an issue with a quick or easy solution, of course, but it’s one that could really benefit from a big ol’ heap of awareness.

So today, just take note of how many plastic items you use throughout your day and especially note how many get disposed.

Ask yourself if there’s a greener alternative or if you can eliminate the use of that item entirely.

For instance, do you use disposable plastic pens when you could be using a pen that accepts refills? And can you buy those refills eight to a pack instead of in the single size so you can throw away less plastic packaging?

Or can you opt to grab your glass covered casserole to house tonight’s leftovers instead of reaching for a plastic container?

Look, I realize that trying to live a more eco-friendly life can be confusing and sometimes, inconvenient.

I also realize there are big issues at play that the average consumer can’t affect and that will need to be handled by larger organizations, non-profits and governments.

But if each of us would just live our days with a bit more awareness and if each of us could make even one eco-friendly adjustment in our lives every year — yet alone every month or every week — our world would change for the better.

Because I believe that just as plastic begets more plastic, small efforts like these beget more small efforts on our part. And small efforts always seem to beget bigger efforts.

And don’t think for one second that all of this begetting won’t make our planet greener, cleaner and healthier!

Fortunately, someone somewhere made one of those small efforts and held on to today’s VPOD instead of tossing it into the trash, because this vintage lucite necklace has plenty of fashion life left to go.

It’s a colorful fun find for a vintage fashionista!

Available at Old Luxe. | Discovered at TheFind.com.

Written on August 3, 2011 by Mary Kincaid in Eco, Green, jewelry, Necklaces

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Curation + Inspiration

Category Archives: jewelry

VPOD: Takeaways from Jean-Louis Rodrigue Workshop Part I and a Vintage 1970s Copper Necklace

Vintage Crusader SPOTLIGHT: Shea Curry, Shameless Jewelry and Project Accessory

VPOD HI/LO: Vintage Wreath Pins and Presence vs. Presents

VPOD: Vintage Filigree Art Glass Duster Earrings and Being Cool

VPOD: Vintage Lucite Pendant Necklace and Recycling Plastic